There's a reason 111 Minna has been open for twenty years. Consistently showing good work and hosting fun events with a helpful and friendly staff is never a bad business model. To celebrate the space and two decades of raising the bar as a gallery, they opened their doors to a ton of people who came out to enjoy it all.

As Indian summer has finally hit here in SF, that meant a hot and sticky crowd, but no one seemed to mind as they rubbed elbows with the best and brightest that the Bay Area art world has to offer. Complete with work from over 50 artists, this show spans the first 20 years of Minna's existence and if they keep going at this rate, they'll have to expand when they celebrate 25 and 30. No matter what the future may bring, this space has rooted itself firmly, and will only be growing from here. PHOTOS

Director of The Water McBeer Gallery, Henry Gunderson, emailed over some images of their current show with Tom Betthauser who currently lives and works in the small desert town of Califorina City, California. He is faculty at Ridgecrest community college where he works to mold the young minds of rural desert youth. This is his first exhibition with the venerated Water McBeer Gallery featuring a new series of hypothetical paintings and drawings that give landscape new substance. Tom received his MFA from Yale University.

Photos from last Friday's opening of Loading @FFDG in San Francisco featuring works by Kelly Tunstall & Ferris Plock. We'll be adding works online later in the day. For now, enjoy the fine folks who came out to support the talented SF couple.

The show commemorated the 18th birthday of Anti Hero Skateboards, and I can't quite believe they're only now legal. McNett is one of my personal favorite artists and it was great to see the woodblock, the print, and the deck all displayed together. It really brought the creation of the boards to life, and the energy imbued in the woodblock is unmistakable in the completed deck. I got there just as it opened, and the prints were already selling like hot-cakes, and I'm sure it only accelerated through the night. It was awesome to see it all together, and I hope it got more rowdy as the beers were drunk and the sun went down. Happy birthday, Anti Hero!

Marking the one-year anniversary of the Book and Job, people gathered in the gallery to see and buy Rip Zinger's photos, and spilled outside the door to catch a show by Tommy. Rip Zinger was selling his photos for super cheap, starting at $5, and displayed them in a way that made you feel like you couldn't help but buy a few and support the cause (it probably also helped that he seems like one hell of a salesman).

People were enjoying themselves in the casual atmosphere and I'm told that the cops who came because of the noise were even pretty cool about it and didn't kick anyone out. If this is only year one, the Book and Job Gallery has developed a growing community, and I can't wait for next year's anniversary party.

A little bit gaudy, a little bit cheeky, and a whole lot of quality describes the work which can now be seen in the Shooting Gallery's newest show I <3 LV. The artists in the show responded to the luxury designs of Louis Vuitton with work that reads as both literal and loosely-based. (PHOTOS)

Bringing the work of Niels "Shoe" Muelman in through video and that video's object output tied the show together, and connected it with the other spaces in the show. Forgoing the traditional logo of the company, several artists, such as Casey Gray, Chad Hasegawa, and Ferris Plock focused on the checkerboard pattern the company frequently uses, and provided a break from the heavy presence of the icon. Even more solace was provided by Meryl Pataky's Cellar Door which can be seen in the project space. Combining foliage and neon lights, this show reads like the garden outside of a glamorous ball, perfect for the concept of the main gallery and its luxury goods. But no matter how lost you may get in the high-priced world of this show, remember, the Tenderloin is just outside the door.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

Just want to say congrats to Fecal Face's Rachel Ralph for graduating from SFAI with her masters in curatorial studies. Also want to congratulate Alex Ziv who also just got his MFA in painting. Also a high five to the talented Mario Ayala who also just graduated from SFAI as well! --- All super talented artists (thinkers), and we're excited to see what the future holds for them!

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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